Chinese authorities had said that some of those arrested had been watching ‘terror videos’ linked to a banned group at their hotel. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, however, was not able for comment.

The group was on a 47-day tour of the country when they were detained at an airport in the city of Ordos. The tour operator, however, only realized two days later that something had gone horribly wrong, when he didn’t hear from the group at all.

“They watched a documentary on Genghis Khan to further their understanding of the region they were in at the time, and this may have mistakenly been deemed as ‘propaganda’ material,” a British spokesman said in a statement.